Black is the New Blonde

2016 was the year for Maryland-based band Megosh. Their
latest record, Apostasy, was released
with Outerloop Records and received great reviews. One of those reviews was in Alternative Press Magazine, something
they dreamed of.

Josh Grosscup and Finch Flores, original members of the
band, met in elementary school but never performed together – except for that
one time at Discovery Zone when they were 12.

There was a point in
their separate music careers that Grosscup was looking for the next step. After
working with half-dedicated musicians and getting virtually nowhere, Grosscup took
to Myspace to find his old friend. Grosscup hadn’t seen Flores in about a year or so
and couldn’t find him anywhere on the social media platform. Just as he was
about to sign out of his profile, he checked his messages.

“What are you doing?” – A message from Finch Flores.

“Get over here. Now.”

The band name was never important, nor was a specific
direction. The only important aspect to them was pushing themselves and pushing
each other to become better musicians. One initial struggle they dealt with was
the title of lead vocalist. “Both of us were weary on being the lead vocalist,” Grosscup said. “We ended up just recording something and out of insecurities of our
own voices we thought it would sound good to add a harmony [and] cover up each
other’s voices.”

“We both had the same plan in mind where we wanted to be guitar
players/back up vocalists,” Flores added. “We knew that we were good but we knew
we would be great back up. We know harmony. I wanted more, the two wasn’t
enough. I wanted someone that was better than both of us.”

Flores posted a Craigslist ad and along came Derv Polimene. He
may have lied about his age (and hasn’t been able to live it down to this day)
but his audition blew the guys away. A band with three-part harmonies was
essentially not heard of at the time, and these guys were ready to change that.

For Apostasy, they
spent weeks in the mountains of North Carolina on an Indian reservation. No
civilization, no cell phone service, just music. “We were isolated,” Grosscup said.
“That’s another reason why we called the album Apostasy, because we took ourselves outside of anything we knew.”

The entire record was self-produced and an all-around smooth
process. The progressive rock with pop sensibility sound that’s heard
throughout the record is 100% genuine, and more importantly, something that Grosscup, Flores and Polimene are 100% proud of.

The brotherhood and professional relationship of Megosh is
beyond what can be put into words. “We’re definitely a family; it’s a
dysfunctional one for sure,” Flores said. After a three-minute discussion on how
they didn’t know when one another’s birthdays were, Flores goes back to the
topic. “The point is, it doesn’t matter. We aren’t those kind of friends. We
don’t need to worry about that for each other; we’re there for each other all
day every day. It doesn’t matter to us. We live together, breathe together, and
write music together.”

“We’re not brothers but I swear it’s like we’re brothers,” Grosscup adds. “It’s an awesome friendship and relationship that we’ve built aside
from the music.”

Their hometown has that sort of underdog tone to it, and
that tone has continued with Megosh. With the success of Apostasy, it’s finally starting to feel like everything is falling
into place.